Breaking Cover Page 5

  Then about a month into training, Adam walked into our shared office with his head hanging low and closed the door. I could feel something was wrong.

  He said, “Michele, we need to talk.”

  I took a deep breath and braced myself. He sat down next to me and got right to the point. “I’m quitting the program. I don’t think I’m cut out for this. I’ve talked extensively with my wife, and we are not prepared to live this kind of life: working undercover, having to move every couple of years, and managing all the stress that entails. We just don’t want to do it. I’ve thought long and hard about this decision, and I wanted to tell you what I was feeling, so you know why I’ve made the decision to drop out.”

  My heart sank. I was crushed. I thought so highly of Adam, but I also knew he was making the right choice. Being a spy is not a part-time job, and it requires the sacrifice not only of the intelligence officer but of his or her entire family. The pressures of living undercover are shared with one’s spouse, so if he or she doesn’t feel comfortable with it, then there’s no use forging ahead. It is not a lifestyle for everyone.

  Of course, when Jim learned the news later that morning, he was shocked. He had assumed that Adam was more suited to the clandestine service than I was. He tried desperately to change Adam’s mind. But my partner was clear on what he wanted out of life—and the CIA was not it. And with that realization, Adam left the program. He cleared out his desk and was gone the next day. Now Jim was stuck with me.

  The training sessions got really weird after that. Because nobody else was in the room, Jim actually had to talk to me, so I took the opportunity to work on him. I wanted to change his mind about me, and now that I had him all to myself, I thought I might have a shot at it.

  I decided to tell him funny stories about the time I spent in Egypt to show him that I was not some sheltered young lady. I told him how I’d encountered a dishonest camel guide in Cairo. After I’d paid twenty-five Egyptian pounds and enjoyed a beautiful loop around the Giza Plateau, the young man said to me, “If you want to get down, you’re going to have to pay an extra fifty pounds.”

  I crossed my arms, sat up straight in the leather saddle, and said, “That’s fine. I’ve got all day.”

  His face contorted, wondering if I’d understood him correctly.

  He explained again, “You pay fifty pounds, and I let you down.”

  I put my hands on my hips and said, “Well, good. I don’t want to get down.”

  He was shocked. He’d never had that response before. He’d extorted money from hundreds of tourists with that line, but now he couldn’t get me off that camel quickly enough.

  I also told Jim about the time in Palestine when my friend Tony and I were in the Muslim Quarter looking at trinkets in a tourist shop. For some reason Tony was trying to find a key chain with Arafat’s likeness as a gift for one of his professors. The shopkeeper was making small talk with us when he asked, “Do you like Arafat?” Because we had not yet grasped the complexity of a question like this with all its potential trip wires, we naively responded, “Sure!”

  He asked, “Why do you like Arafat?”

  “Well, um, because he decided to make peace?”

  It turns out that this was not the right answer. The man turned ten shades of red, and his eyes grew wide as he glared at us with disgust. Spittle flew out of his mouth as he started screaming, “You like Arafat? You like Arafat?”

  Before we could amend our statement or say anything more, the man screamed, “Arafat is a traitor! He shook hands with the enemy! He thinks to make peace with the enemy? How dare he! Arafat should be killed like a cow! Do you know how we kill cows?”

  Bewildered, we slowly shook our heads no, while carefully inching backward toward the exit. Then in a thick and angry voice, the shopkeeper said, “I will tell you how we kill cows: We chop them up into little pieces!” As he said this, he used his hands to demonstrate what it looks like to dismember something by karate chopping it into small chunks.

  Smiling uncomfortably, Tony and I quickly turned around and flew out the door. I glanced back over my shoulder to see the shopkeeper standing there—his face aglow with anger, his eyes full of rage—as we scrambled down the ancient cobblestone street.

  By sharing these stories with Jim, I was seeking to communicate something more profound than a few humorous anecdotes: Don’t mistake my smile for weakness or my sunny disposition for naiveté. I may not know exactly what I’m getting into here at the CIA, but I’m tougher than I look. I’m ready to see what I’m capable of.

  I wasn’t just a tourist with a couple of trips under my belt; I had wandered far off the beaten path into Upper Egypt, Alexandria, and the Sinai desert, immersing myself in the cultures. I was careful to mention that I had also traveled to Kuwait, Morocco, and Israel. Although I looked young, I was no pushover.

  The stories helped soften Jim up a bit, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced. I still had to prove I was operationally minded and capable of serving as a covert intelligence officer. He needed to see that I could take the heat, so he turned it up . . . way up.

  One morning, I received a folder from Jim that provided instructions for the day’s scenario. Each student was to drive to a local restaurant to meet with an instructor posing as a nuclear scientist. The brief described the source as a person who worked for the type of country that we would characterize as a pariah state. My classmates and I had never worked against hard targets, people from countries or cultures that were difficult to recruit from either because we had minimal access to them or because their ideology was so hardwired that there was little chance they’d agree to work with the CIA. Because we’d be dealing with a hard target, we assumed the exercise would be more challenging than any we had already faced. Our job was to develop rapport with the subject, while working to authenticate his identity and assess his value.

  All the students were given the same scenario, although the instructors would play their parts differently, depending on their personalities and the students’ performances. We went into that training scenario expecting to meet a walk-in who had risked his life to make contact with the world’s preeminent intelligence-gathering agency.

  As I drove to the meeting location, I was trying to focus on what I needed to achieve. Up until this point, all restaurant meetings had been straightforward, so I told myself there was no reason to worry about this scenario. The mechanics of the meeting were the same, although the story and inherent challenges of meeting with a hard target were unique.

  It will be fine, I assured myself. Just get inside the restaurant, order a nice salad, and engage the instructor like you always do.

  I cleared the first hurdle by arriving at the restaurant within the prescribed five-minute window. I carefully parked the car, exited the vehicle, and slung my purse over my shoulder. As I started walking through the white gravel parking lot toward the restaurant, I noticed a gentleman in his midfifties pacing back and forth on the walkway next to the entrance. He looked fidgety. I realized that this was probably the instructor posing as “Malek,” so I walked over to him and delivered the oral paroles I had carefully memorized. (Oral paroles are code words we exchange to ensure we’re talking to the instructor and not the mechanic from down the street on his lunch break.)

  The gentleman responded with the appropriate code words, but then the scenario took an unexpected and unwelcome turn. I was presented with a very difficult “target” who didn’t want to meet with me because I was a woman. He had me jump through many challenging hoops that seemed to test my resolve and ability to deal with difficult personalities.

  One of the drawbacks of my being open, smiley, and easy to engage is that these qualities often confuse people and lead them to inaccurate conclusions about my personality and capabilities. Those who deal with me for only a short time may hastily assume that I am one-dimensional, not serious, lacking in intelligence, or naive.

  My instructor needed to test my determination and grit, as well as m
y ability to remain focused even when I faced unexpected obstacles. I needed to demonstrate that I could be firm when necessary. The role player quickly found out that, despite my friendly demeanor, I was willing to be assertive.

  It reminded me of an encounter I’d had in Cairo. I had purchased a bottle of water from a street vendor, and he was counting the change back to me in Arabic while he laid the bills in my hand. Having just learned Arabic numbers, I knew that he had skipped one. Momentarily forgetting to be polite, I jumped in and said, “No, you forgot ashara [ten]!”

  As soon as I said it, I was horrified. In American culture, calling someone out in this manner is not the most polite way to address a vendor’s “oversight,” but instead of being offended, the old man chuckled and joyfully handed the missing bill back to me. He wasn’t embarrassed at all. He was beaming and patting me on the back, as if to congratulate me on properly standing up for myself.

  While this may seem like an insignificant experience, it offered me one of the greatest lessons of my life: No one will respect you if you don’t stand up for your own interests. People do not walk on eggshells in the Middle East; they pursue their interests without apology and resolve their differences by hashing them out loudly, in front of others, not by hiding the issue or delicately dancing around it.

  With lessons like this under my belt, I began to amend the way I interacted with the world. I started to understand how critical it was to take a harsher tone or act more aggressively when my well-being or security was at stake, practices that seemed to go against the Southern culture in which I was so firmly anchored.

  Eventually Malek and I did get to the meat of the exercise, but that seemed to be secondary to testing my knowledge and resolve. I think the instructor had been told to increase the stress level as much as possible to see if he could dominate and throw me off balance. It didn’t work; I did not cave. I remained focused and intent on achieving my objectives.

  The next day, Jim said, “I heard you did pretty well yesterday.”

  Wait, did Jim just give me a compliment?

  Jim was slowly realizing that I was not just meeting but exceeding the standards the instructors had laid out for this and other exercises. I might not just be good enough to scrape through my training; I might even be sufficiently talented and determined to do the hard work of a CIA agent.

  Even though Jim was slowly starting to come around, the cold, hard truth is that—even today—certain jobs in the agency are considered a better fit for men. When a job involves dealing with rather unsavory individuals (like terrorists) or revolves around cutthroat business dealings, the gender bias leans even more dramatically in a man’s favor. People assume that a strong male presence is more effective in certain scenarios. I suppose that’s true if you are battling it out in an ultimate fighting competition, but it’s not often that intelligence agents are expected to enter the ring and face off against Hulk Hogan or The Rock.

  I can’t blame other people for operating under old assumptions about gender. I myself assumed that men were better at serving in the core collector roles (the people who recruit and handle spies) since most of the agency’s sources are men and many come from incredibly paternalistic cultures.

  It’s a fairly logical view unless you understand the psychology of espionage. The key is to be able to correctly read your opponent. Espionage is all about psychology, and when you master the ability to read others while thinly disguising your own hand, you can turn your “gender liability” into an advantage.

  In the CIA, smart women tap into the misplaced assumptions of the adversary by using the element of surprise. It’s almost like playing poker. When a criminal, terrorist, or potential business partner does not expect a woman to be his equal, you—the woman—hold all the cards. When you finally reveal your hand, his jaw drops in disbelief. A woman can change the terms of the engagement. She can use all her attributes, intelligence, and empathy to win the game before anyone realizes that she’s even playing.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this when I began my career with the CIA. I wish someone had told me back then about Virginia Hall—one of the first female spies ever to work for the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA. She is perhaps the best example I’ve found of a woman allowing people to underestimate her—and then using it to her advantage.

  Virginia had wanted to be a diplomat for as long as she could remember. She loved to travel, and she had a faculty for languages and an adventurous spirit. Her dream was to work her way up in the Foreign Service to eventually direct a US mission abroad. As lofty as these aspirations are now, back in the 1920s they were downright unrealistic. In the early twentieth century, there was no such thing as a female ambassador. But Virginia was intent on pursuing this goal, and like a good diplomat in training, she mapped out a course of action and began taking steps toward its realization.

  Twice, she took—and failed—the Foreign Service exam. Undeterred, she decided to travel abroad to gain some practical experience, working first at the US embassy in Warsaw, Poland, and later at the US consulate in Turkey. While there, she suffered a horrific accident. An avid outdoorswoman, Virginia loved hiking, hunting, and horseback riding. One day while hunting with friends, Virginia was climbing over a fence when her shotgun accidently discharged. She looked down to see her left foot hanging in shreds. By the time she made it to the hospital, gangrene had set in, and her leg had to be amputated below the knee. Soon thereafter she was fitted with a wooden leg. The restoration of her mobility, even through a clumsy “peg leg,” must have been a relief for such an active woman. But I’m sure it wasn’t considered very womanly, at a time when a woman’s appearance was of utmost importance.

  Still, Virginia was not the kind of person who would let a gunshot wound and amputation get in the way of her dreams. As soon as she was well enough, she went to work as a clerk at the US consulate in Venice, Italy. While there, she submitted her application for a Foreign Service position, but she was rejected on the grounds that she wasn’t “able-bodied.”

  Virginia tried valiantly to resuscitate her dream, launching numerous appeals to senior State Department officers, but to no avail. Dejected and demoralized, Virginia realized she wasn’t going to get anywhere with the State Department. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to break into a bureaucracy that didn’t welcome females (let alone female amputees) into its ranks.

  Unsure of what to do next, Virginia decided to spend the summer of 1939 in France. Unbeknownst to her, the decision to go to Paris placed her in position to respond to a crisis that would soon envelop a significant portion of the world.

  On September 1, 1939, after a long and unsettled summer in Europe, Hitler invaded Poland. Britain and France responded to Hitler’s aggression by declaring war on Germany, and World War II was officially under way.

  Wanting to be useful to the war effort, Virginia enlisted in the French ambulance corps to help evacuate casualties from the front lines. She drove the ambulance, negotiated dangerous terrain, and contended daily with the drama of war—all with a wooden leg!

  Virginia continued her service in the ambulance corps until France surrendered to Nazi Germany the following year. This meant that Virginia was now trapped in hostile territory. She knew she had to escape, and a month later, she successfully crossed into neutral Spain before making her way to England.

  After arriving at the US embassy in London and providing an incredibly insightful debrief on the conditions in France, Virginia took a job at the US Defense Attaché’s Office. But it took only a few months for Virginia to realize that the embassy’s desk job wasn’t doing it for her. That wasn’t where she needed to be.

  Here’s where the story gets really interesting. At some point during her time in London, the British noticed Virginia’s potential and pitched her to work for the newly established British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Launched by Winston Churchill, the new agency’s objective was to link up with resistance movements and emp
ower them to defeat the German occupiers. Churchill’s marching orders to the new group were simple and straightforward; they were to “set Europe ablaze!”

  This was the opportunity Virginia had waited for without even knowing what it was. The offer appealed to Virginia because she deeply believed she was supposed to be on the front lines, not the sidelines, of the conflict. Virginia accepted the recruitment proposal right away. She completed the SOE’s new covert training program and in April 1941 became a special agent. The woman who could not get hired by the State Department to represent the United States in diplomatic functions or to mingle at social soirees suddenly found herself preparing for deployment to Vichy, France, where she would bear the code name “Germaine” while assuming the persona of Brigitte LeContre, a French-American reporter for the New York Post.

  Virginia immediately distinguished herself as a resourceful agent who could accomplish what most others could not. She spent the next fifteen months working in Lyon organizing, funding, supplying, and arming the French Resistance. She rescued downed Allied airmen, making sure they made it safely back to England. She oversaw SOE parachute drops designed to supply Resistance fighters. She organized sabotage attacks against German supply lines. She engineered POW escapes from German and Vichy French prisons and camps. She even served as a liaison for other SOE agents operating in southern France.[2]

  Virginia was so effective in her missions that she flew to the top of the Gestapo’s most wanted list, even though they didn’t know exactly who she was. Operationally astute and brilliant with disguises, Virginia was able to hide her true identity from her enemies; they didn’t even know that she was an American. But that didn’t stop them from circulating posters offering a reward for her capture, describing her as the “woman with a limp. . . . She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.”[3]